Professor David Griffiths

Professor of Archaeology

Course Director of the MSc in Applied Landscape Archaeology

Programme Director of the part-time D.Phil in Archaeology

Director of Graduate Studies – Research (Doctoral)

Research interests

Orcid id: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4162-9804

Historical, Viking-age and medieval archaeology; landscape archaeology (method, theory and practice); past environmental and coastal landscape change; landscape heritage; public engagement and community archaeology. Geographic areas: England, Wales, Northern Isles of Scotland, Irish Sea region, North Atlantic, Scandinavia. I am also interested museums, antiquarianism, material heritage and society.

Recently published:

• The Archaeology of East Oxford
• Antiquity 
• Beside the Ocean  

Biography

BA, PhD (Durham), MA (Oxon), FSA, FSA Scot, MCIfA

I am (Full) Professor at the University of Oxford. I have taught at Oxford and been a Fellow of Kellogg College since 1999. I studied History and Archaeology at Durham University and was a visiting student and fieldworker at the University of Tromsø, Norway. In the 1990s I was a professional archaeologist working in the gas pipeline construction industry and for a planning consultancy. I have also been a temporary lecturer at the Institute of Archaeology, UCL. I am a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London (FSA), Scotland (FSA Scot.) and a Member of the Chartered Institute for Archaeologists (MCIfA).

Visiting Professor, University of Highlands and Islands, Institute for Northern Studies

Co-Organiser and Co-Chair, 19th Viking Congress (Wales and North-West England) July 2022, and co-editor of congress proceedings. 

Member of Board of Visitors, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, 2019-23.

Member of Academic Planning Group for new Museum of the Viking Age (Viking Ships Museum), University of Oslo, Norway.

British Academy/Leverhulme Senior Research Fellow, 2014-15.

Winner: Inaugural Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Public Engagement with Research, 2016 (Archeox, Archaeology of East Oxford Project).

Panel reviewer for the Norwegian Research Council, NordForsk, the Icelandic Research Council, the Irish Research Council and the Ludwig Boltzmann Gesellschaft.  

REF 2021 Impact Case Study: Archeox

Teaching and examining

Course Director and supervisor for Postgraduate courses - MSc Applied Landscape Archaeology and D.Phil in Archaeology (part-time stream). I also oversee the part-time teaching programmes in Archaeology, Ancient History and Anthropology, including  (shared with Dr David Lewis and Dr Martin Michette) the programme of professional training in Cultural Heritage. 

External Examinerships (terms completed): Durham, Cambridge ICE, Aberdeen, Southampton, Birmingham and Chester. M.Phils/PhDs examined at Cambridge, Durham, UC Cork, Glasgow, Nottingham, York, Chester, UC Dublin.

D.Phil supervision

I am happy to discuss supervising or co-supervising topics which are a good fit with my academic interests in historical/medieval, Viking-Age, or landscape archaeology and heritage, either as part-time D.Phil students admitted through Continuing Education, or as full-time D.Phil students who would have to apply via the School of Archaeology.

I currently have six D.Phil supervisees across Continuing Education and the School of Archaeology, and have previously seen six through to completion.

Research and public engagement activity

I am or have been PI on the following research projects:

Birsay-Skaill Landscape Archaeology Project (Orkney, Scotland), funded by Historic Environment Scotland, Oxford University and Orkney Islands Council. Beginning in 2003, geophysics and selective excavation have revealed a wealth of exciting new data in this archaeologically-rich area. This project was nominated for 'Research Project of the Year' by Current Archaeology Magazine in 2012. The landscape and structural report was published as a monograph entitled 'Beside the Ocean' by Oxbow Books in 2019. Work on the excavation archive is ongoing with colleagues in UHI and Durham, with new studies under way of soil chemical mapping, lipid biomarkers and animal isotopes. Current collaborations on wider contextual interpretation with Gordon Noble (Aberdeen) and Judith Jesch (Nottingham). I am working with Orkney Museums to display the finds in a redesigned gallery, and on a community engagement project to teach crafts and skills in traditional building construction using evidence from the Viking-age longhouse that we uncovered.  

Archeox: The East Oxford Community Archaeology Project.  A five-year project has concluded, funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund and Oxford University on the archaeology and history project on the urban landscape of East Oxford.  Nominated for 'Best Community Archaeology Project' by the BAA Awards 2012. Winner 2016 Vice-Chancellor's Award for Public Engagement with Research. The open access monograph (2020) can be downloaded here (go to 'Downloads').

I have undertaken a number of field projects as part of postgraduate survey training with MSc Applied Landscape Archaeology students, including at the Neolithic Causewayed enclosure of Robin Hood's Ball, near Larkhill, Wiltshire: report can be found here; in the environs of the Roman and Medieval small town of Dorchester-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, and on the multi-period landscape of Hampton Gay, a rural medieval settlement in the Cherwell Valley north of Oxford.

In 2007, I completed a major research and publication project on the coastal site of Meols, Wirral, in conjunction with National Museums Liverpool. The online project archive is with the Archaeology Data Service together with the open access monograph pdf (go to 'Downloads').

I have also undertaken and completed research funded by Cadw on the Viking Age sculptured cross 'Maen Achwyfan' in North Wales (see list of publications below).

My book Vikings of the Irish Sea (2010 reprinted 2012) continues to be popular with academic, student and public audiences, and an updated edition is due out in 2025.

I have given many lectures and seminars, including the 2023 Sir David Wilson lecture (UCL/British Museum) the Whithorn Lecture and the H. Addyman Lecture (York), and have participated in countless conferences, workshops and colloquia in the UK, Ireland, Scandinavia, France, Spain, Iceland, Greenland, and the USA. I have also done some media work with BBC 4 (Timewatch), and BBC local radio in Orkney and Oxfordshire.

Publications

Books, Monographs, journal articles, book chapters and edited volumes (list does not include book reviews which have been published in Medieval Archaeology, Antiquity, Archaeological Journal, Agricultural History Review, Scottish Historical Review, amongst others.)

Downham, C, Griffiths, D, Edwards N. and Edmonds, F. (eds) [in prep] Viking Connections, Proceedings of the 19th Viking Congress, Wales and North-West England, 2022, Liverpool University Press.

Jamieson, A. et al. (including Griffiths, D.)  'Palaeogenomic Evidence for the Long-Term Reproductive Isolation Between Wild and Domestic Cats'. Current Biology 14 March 2023,  SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4384594 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4384594

Griffiths, D. 2023 Chapter 1: 'Landnam and Landscape in Viking Orkney', in Horne, T, Pierce, E and Barrowman, R (eds) The Viking Age in Scotland, Edinburgh University Press, 13-28.

Griffiths, D. 2021 Chapter 21 (502-11) and Chapter 23 (533-540) in Morris, C, Batey, C, Emery, N, Fawcett, R, Griffiths, D, Outram, Z, Ovenden, S, Rackham, D.J, The Birsay Bay Project Volume 3, The Brough of Birsay, Orkney, Investigations 1954-2014, Oxbow, Oxford.

Griffiths, D. 2020 'How Scandinavian was the Viking Age in the Northern Isles?' Viking Encounters: Proceedings of the XVIII Viking Congress, Aarhus University Press, 318-330.

Griffiths, D and Harrison, J. (eds) 2020 The Archaeology of East Oxford: Archeox, the Story of a Community, Thames Valley Landscapes Monograph Series 43, Oxford.

Griffiths, D. 2019 'Rethinking the Early Viking Age in the West', Antiquity 93, Issue 368, April 2019, 468-77.

Griffiths, D, Harrison J. and Athanson, M. 2019  Beside the Ocean: Coastal Landscapes at the Bay of Skaill, Marwick and Birsay Bay, Orkney. Archaeological Research 2003-18. (in conjunction with Historic Environment Scotland, Oxbow, Oxford).

Wintle, W. and Griffiths, D. 2017 'Dorchester Abbey Cloisters Geophysical Survey 2012'. South Midlands Archaeology, 47, 80-81.

Wintle, W., Griffiths, D. and Hey, G. 2016 'Geophysical Survey in Dorchester-on-Thames 2008'. South Midlands Archaeology, 46, 93-95.

Griffiths, D. 2015 'Medieval Coastal Sand Inundation in Britain and Ireland', Medieval Archaeology Vol 59, 103-121.

Griffiths, D. 2015 ‘Status and Identity in Norse Settlements: A Case Study from Orkney’ in Barrett, J.H. and Gibbon, S-J. (eds) Maritime Societies of the Viking and Medieval World, Society for Medieval Archaeology Monograph 37 (Maney, Leeds), 219-36.

Griffiths, D. 2015 'Irish Sea identities and interconnections during the Viking Age' in Clarke, H B. and Johnson, R. (eds) Vikings in Ireland and Beyond (Dublin, Four Courts Press), 470-484.

Griffiths, D. 2014 'Preface', in Hurley, M.F, Russell, I.R. and Eogan, J (eds) Woodstown, A Viking Age Settlement in County Waterford (Dublin, Four Courts Press) http://www.fourcourtspress.ie/books/2014/woodstown/

Griffiths, D. 2014 Early Medieval Whithorn, the Irish Sea Context, 21st Whithorn Lecture, 2013, (Whithorn Trust), Stranraer.

Harding, S, Griffiths, D, Royles, E. (eds) 2014 In Search of Vikings, Interdiscipinary approaches to the Scandinavian Heritage of North-West England (CRC Press, Taylor & Francis).

Griffiths, D. 2013 'Living in Viking Age Towns' in Hadley, D.M. and Ten Harkel, L (eds) Towns in the Viking Age,, (Oxbow), 1-13.

Griffiths, D. 2013 'The Context of the 1858 Skaill Hoard', in Reynolds, A. and Webster L. (eds) Early Medieval Art and Archaeology in the Northern World, Studies in Honour of James Graham-Campbell, Brill, 501-26.

Griffiths, D. and Harrison, J. 2011 'Interpreting Power and Status in the Landscape of Viking Age Orkney', in Sigmundsson, S (ed.) Viking Settlements and Society, Proceedings of the XVI Viking Congress, Reykjavik, 2009 (National Museum of Iceland),  132-46.

Griffiths, D. and Harrison J 2011 'A Viking Age Settlement under wind-blown sand' Medieval Britain and Ireland, 2010, Medieval Archaeology Vol. 55, 321-6.

Griffiths, D. 2011 'The Ending of Anglo-Saxon England: Identity, Allegiance and Nationality', in Hamerow, H, Hinton, D. and Crawford, S. (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Anglo-Saxon Archaeology, (Oxford University Press),  62-78.

Griffiths, D. 2011 'Towns and their Hinterlands', in Crick, J and Van Houts, L (eds) A Social History of England, (Cambridge University Press), 152-78. 

Griffiths, D. and Ashmore, P. (eds) 2011 Aeolian Archaeology, the Archaeology of Sand Landscapes in Scotland (Scottish Archaeological Internet Reports 48) https://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/library/browse/issue.xhtml?recordId=1076852

Griffiths, D. 2010 (reprinted 2012) Vikings of the Irish Sea, Conflict and Assimilation AD 790-1050, (History Press).

Griffiths, D. 2009 'The Archaeological Background', in Graham-Campbell, J. and Philpott, R. (eds) The Huxley Hoard, Scandinavian Settlement in the North West (National Museums Liverpool), 13-21.  

Griffiths, D. 2009 'Sand Dunes and Stray Finds: evidence for pre-Viking Trade?' in Graham-Campbell, J. and Ryan, M. (eds) Anglo-Saxon/Irish Relations before the Vikings, Proceedings of the British Academy 157, 265-280.  

Griffiths, D., Philpott, R. and Egan, G. 2007 Meols, The Archaeology of the North Wirral Coast (Oxford University School of Archaeology Monograph Series 68).

Griffiths, D. 2006 ‘Birsay and Skaill, Orkney, Landscape Survey 2003-4’, in Jones, R.E. and Sharpe, L (eds.) Going over Old Ground: Perspectives on archaeological, geophysical and geochemical survey in Scotland, (BAR British Series 416), 213-24.

Griffiths, D. 2006 ‘Maen Achwyfan, and the context of Viking Settlement in North-East Wales’, Archaeologia Cambrensis Vol. 155, 143-62.

Griffiths, D. 2004 ‘Settlement and Acculturation in the Irish Sea Region’ in Hines, J, Lane, A. and Redknap, M. (eds) Land Sea and Home, (Society for Medieval Archaeology Monograph Series 20), 125-38.

Griffiths, D. 2003 ‘Trade, Exchange and Urbanisation’ in Davies, Wendy (ed.) From the Vikings to the Normans, Short Oxford History of the British Isles 800-1100, (Oxford University Press), 73-104.

Griffiths, D. 2003 ‘Markets and Productive Sites, a view from Western Britain’ in Pestell, T. & Ulmschneider, K. (eds) Markets in Early Medieval Europe (Windgather Press) 62-72 (volume was winner of 2004 BAA Award for best scholarly publication).

Griffiths, D., Semple, S and Reynolds, A (eds) 2003 'Boundaries in Early Medieval Britain’ Anglo-Saxon Studies in Archaeology and History Vol 12.

Griffiths, D. 2001 ‘The North-West Frontier’ in Hill, D. & Higham, N. (eds.) Edward the Elder (Routledge), 167-187.

Dickinson, T. and Griffiths, D. (eds) 1999 'The Making of Kingdoms' Anglo-Saxon Studies in Archaeology and History Vol. 10. 

Griffiths, D (ed) 1998 Anglo-Saxon Studies in Archaeology and History Vol.  9.

Griffiths, D (ed) 1995 Anglo-Saxon Studies in Archaeology and History Vol.  8.

Filmer-Sanker, W. and Griffiths, D. (eds) 1994 Anglo-Saxon Studies in Archaeology and History Vol.  7.